Patriotism in Paradise

Hawaii!  A once-in-a-lifetime trip!  I never thought I would be in Honolulu, Hawaii, on the island of Oahu, on my honeymoon and a birthday trip for my sixteen-year-old daughter.  But who cares?  I was in "Paradise!"

I was ecstatic over the spectacular beauty around every corner, from the vibrant green foliage and perfumed elegance of the flowers to the brilliant blue of the sky that seemed to melt into the crystal blue ocean.  I seemed to have a permanent look of awe on my face.  I wanted to see everything, yet never leave anywhere.  I wanted to linger, to absorb the beauty, the serenity.

How would I have ever suspected that right smack-dab in the middle of "Paradise", I would visit a tourist attraction that would, not necessarily change my life, but would substantially rekindle the flame of patriotism?

We drove into the parking lot of the base at Pearl Harbor, each of us feeling something totally different.  My daughter felt a touch of "Here we go again - another history lesson.  I'd much rather be on the beach checking out the natives and soaking up the rays."  My husband felt an excitement, a sense of remembrance and pride, having served as Color Guard on the "USS Arizona" when he was in the Marine Corps.  I, however, felt a little apprehensive.  I'm not a history buff; in fact, I consider myself a dunce where history is concerned.  I was not terribly enthusiastic, except I had heard a lot about Pearl Harbor, so I was curious.

We walked around the center looking at all the tourist stuff - the bookstore with its tacky souvenirs, the snack shop with its outrageous prices.  We took pictures of each other.  We took pictures of birds.  We took pictures of flowers.  I took pictures of some white structure surrounded by concrete posts in the harbor.  I took pictures of my husband and daughter looking at the white structure and concrete posts.  We played tourists to the hilt.

"Is this it?" I asked my husband, who had been here many times.

"Do you know what you're looking at?" he asked, trying not to sound impatient with me.

I shrugged, hesitant to admit my ignorance.

He explained, with the patience of a saint, that the white structure was the memorial built over the sunken "USS Arizona", and the concrete posts were the mooring blocks for the other ships that were anchored in the harbor when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

"Oh," I said, still wondering what this was all about.  People began lining up outside the theater.  "Why can't we just go out to the ship?" I wondered to myself, knowing my husband would be upset at my impatience.  So we got in line just like everyone else.

Once in the theater, I settled into my seat, completely prepared to be bored to tears and frantic for a cigarette.  The theater went totally dark.  As the narrator began to speak, I sat straight in my seat, totally mesmerized with his voice and the words he spoke.

His deep, mellow voice told of the events of the day Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese.  The film included some of the actual footage taken that day, with the airplanes diving in for the kill.  But then the bell began to toll. 

 

As the underwater camera swept the expanse of "The Arizona" with its rusting hull, the bubbles from the cameraman's air tank ascended to the surface, seeking sanctuary.  As the camera scanned, the narrator read the names of the sailors and Marines buried alive on "The Arizona."  With each toll of the bell, another name was read.  Another tolling of the bell, another name.  Another and another.  I cringed with each new name, anticipating the bell, dreading yet another name being read, afraid to breathe in fear I'd miss a name, but not wanting to hear anymore.

As the lights came on, other people in the theater began to stir.  I couldn't move.  I stared at the blank screen in horror.  My husband took my hand and led me to the boat - the one that would take us to the watery grave.

As we settled in the boat that would take us the short distance to the memorial, I looked over my shoulder.  There in the radiant blue Hawaiian sky was a rainbow - like Joseph's coat of many colors - distinct and with an iridescent glow.  The colors seemed to spill in to the water surrounding the harbor.

The monument over "The Arizona" came closer.  The red, white and blue of Old Glory waved proudly over the memorial.  The white structure took on the glow of the rainbow and the golden sun.  It looked as if it was made of spun glass - like the glow of candles surrounded by angel hair on Christmas morning - like fresh, fallen snow on a crisp, clear January day.

Just inside the memorial was the ship's bell retrieved by divers - the tolling bell from the film?  Maybe.  The center of the structure was directly over "The Arizona."  I could look below and see the rusty ship just below the surface of the water.  Flower leis, as symbols of peace and love, were tossed into the water by all nationalities of people - from Americans to Japanese, as tributes to our dead.  Some hung silently against the sides of the memorial, bouncing gently with the ripples of the waves, struggling to get free.

The granite wall further inside the memorial held the names of those men and women who died on "The Arizona."  I walked up to my new husband, who stood in front of the list of Marines, and touched his hand.  I looked at the names, dreading the possibility of finding a name I knew, yet also knowing the pride I would have felt, relieved when there was none.

As I stood there in the silence, I could almost hear the bell in the film, the names being read.  I remembered as a little girl standing on a grassy hill overlooking the Mississippi River at the Vicksburg Civil War battleground, hearing in my mind's ear, the sounds of the guns and the screams of my forefathers as they fought for their beliefs.  I knew in my heart, these who died on "The Arizona" only knew the surprise of pain and death - unaware of what was happening, unable to fight back.  I felt silent tears fall, the knot in my throat, the heaviness in my heart, but I found myself standing a little straighter, my shoulders back, proud to be an American.

As we got back on the boat, no one spoke.  There was a mutual silent respect for the dead, a mutual sadness, yet everyone seemed to walk a little taller.  I sat between my husband and my daughter, each of us lost in our own thoughts, holding their hands and occasionally wiping a tear from my eye.

I dread the possibility, or probability, of this kind of devastation occurring again.  Yet how fragile are those freedoms we take for granted - how life can be extinguished in the blink of an eye.  I know this - one of millions of graves of millions of young men and women - will not be the last.  Many more will die in my lifetime, in my daughter's lifetime, to insure the protection of a particular belief, or country or people.

I, for one, never want to experience this kind of pain, this kind of loss, but I never want my children to turn their backs on their country.  I hope somehow to instill in them the patriotism I renewed on my visit to the "USS Arizona" at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, on the island of Oahu  - "Paradise."

 

Written in 1999.

 

The Legacy

            Emily tucked her feet under her as Mark pushed the porch swing slowly.  She rested her slender arm on the back of the swing with her fingers touching his back tenderly.  The swing had always been a place where she could talk or sometimes just think out solutions to problems she had faced.  She smiled remembering all the times she and her mother had sat in the swing to talk.  Those times were special to her especially now, now that she wouldn’t get that opportunity ever again.

            Mark put his arm on top of hers on the swing and rubbed her neck gently.  “It’ll be okay, you know.”  His eyes wandered to the activity in the front yard.  Emily’s nieces and nephews were playing tag or some sort of game without a care in the world.  Their laughter and carefree attitude was once contagious, but not so much now.

            “Yeah, I know.  Someday.”  Emily’s smile of remembrance was short-lived.  Her red-streaked eyes closed.  “Yeah, someday.”

            “Let’s go get a beer.” 

            “I can’t leave now.”  The whole family was here and lots of friends and neighbors had stopped by to, to what?  Bring casseroles and desserts.  They didn’t really know her, but I guess it’s pretty nice of them to show they care.  Even if it was too late. 

           Her panty hose caught on the rough pine of the swing as she pulled her legs from under her, snagging a hole the size of a dime.  Her fingers pulled at the hole causing the run to inch down her tattooed leg.  She’d hoped the hose would cover the large tiger dyed into her muscular calf.  The stockings had only muted the colors, not the tattoo. 

            Mark had pulled back his long hair into a ponytail and had even left his Dallas Cowboy hat at the house.  His brown tweed suit was pretty shiny in places it shouldn’t be from years of wearing to weddings and funerals.  He felt uncomfortable and longed to get back into his jeans and Nikes.  He pulled the knot of his unmatched tie to loosen it from around his neck.  He knew he couldn’t fix this.  The love of his life was hurting, and he couldn’t do anything to make it better.

            “When did you know?”

            “Know what?”  Emily picked at the hole further, more the size of a quarter now.  She breathed deeply, almost like a sigh.  The aroma of the newly bloomed daffodils caused her to remember when she and her mom had planted the bulbs.  The pistachio daffodil was her mom’s favorite and it seemed to stand taller than the others, as if in tribute.  “Know she was dying?”

            “Yeah.  Did she tell you?”

            “Not in words, so much, as in the way she prepared us.”  The tears seemed to fall so easily now.  They just fell without sobs or the other noises a person makes when they cry.  She had stopped trying to wipe them away.  It was futile; there were too many. 

            Her youngest niece ran up the stairs to the porch.  Kassidy slipped her tiny body between Emily and Mark, placing her head in Emily’s lap.  “Did you hurt yourself, Aunt Em?”  She was only four, but had the wisdom of her elders.  “You want me to kiss it and make it better like Grandma does?”  Her sweet lips kissed Emily’s calf where the hose were torn.  “There.  All better now.”

            Emily’s heart ached.  Her mom had been so proud of her grandchildren.  She ran with them in the sprinkler on those hot Texas Spring afternoons and taught them how to somersault.  She cooked slice and bake cookies and fixed s’mores on the stove burner when the rain kept them from building a fire.  God, I miss her, but at least I knew her.  They will never get the chance to really know her, but they will have some good memories.

            “I’ll be okay, Sugar.  I just miss Grandma, that’s all.”

            “Me too.”  Kassidy was off to play with her sisters and cousins again.  Full speed or stop; those were the only speeds those kids knew.  Mom managed to keep up with them until it had gotten close to the end.  Emily put her head on Mark’s shoulder and cried softly. 

            “Mom wanted to see those kids grow up so bad.  God, she adored them.”  Mark tightened his arms around her, wishing he could do something to make her stop hurting, but knowing there was nothing he could do except hold her right now.  “She wanted me to have kids, too, but knew I didn’t want any.  She accepted that, but still wanted more grandkids around.  They kept her so young and vital.”

            Mark waited.  He knew words weren’t necessary right now.  “She had issues from the past that she had dealt with – sometimes not real well, but she had come out of them stronger. She taught me how to handle things I had no control over, how to just let them go, but she never taught me how to deal with her not being here.”  A sob escaped from Emily’s throat.  “Did I ever tell you about my abusive step-dad or her childhood?”

            Mark had heard about the step-dad, but not about Beth’s childhood.  He kept holding her even after she lifted her head from his shoulder.  He got angry whenever he heard the story of Smitty and how he had beaten Beth so violently.  Emily still had nightmares about it. 

           She had been the one that found her mother unconscious and bleeding after that violent attack.  That had been over ten years ago.  Emily had only been seventeen, a senior in high school, when she came home early in the morning of New Year’s Day.  Smitty and Beth had gone out partying and both of them had had too much to drink.  Some things had been said or some accusations about flirting or something and Smitty beat her almost to death.  Emily drove Beth to the emergency room after getting a neighbor to help her put her mom in the car.  She had a broken jaw and several broken ribs.  Her mom’s left hand was never completely right again after he had broken eighteen bones in it.  She had been covered in bruises on her back and hips where he had kicked her and thrown her against the wall.  Emily talked about it sometimes after her nightmares.

         “Her oldest brother raped her when she was ten years old.  After my grandma found out about it, she blamed my mom for seducing him.  Can you imagine, blaming a ten-year-old for her own brother’s violent rape?  Mom had a hard time getting over that, but she did – just about the time that bastard beat her up.”  Emily recalled how her mom had talked about that.  She had been seeing a therapist and felt that she had to talk about it.  Emily was always a good listener and in those days, had acted as the parent to her mom.  That had brought them closer together back then, the switching of roles.  It had made her mom uncomfortable, but she had needed Emily to be strong for her at that time.  “Mom forgave him somehow.  I sure couldn’t have.  She even forgave her mother.”

       “Damn.”  Mark shook his head.  He was beginning to understand where Emily got her strength.  He had always known she was strong emotionally, but never really knew where it came from.  Even in the worst situations, she had always seemed at peace.  Nothing ever really rattled her and he found that hard to understand.  She was beautiful and a very talented photographer.  She rarely conformed in dress or mannerisms to the rest of her generation.  She was nearing thirty years old and still wore no make-up and her beautiful auburn hair fell to her waist.  Most of her clothes would be considered vintage 60’s at this point, but trends never really interested her.  She wore what she felt comfortable in and her mom always complained about that.  Beth had said many times that Emily was so pretty when she was dressed up.  But she had also taught her to think for herself and to do what felt right.  Boy, does she ever think for herself.  But that’s one of the many reasons I love her so.

        Emily slid out of the swing, not overly concerned about the run in her hose any longer.  She stretched her arms over her head, grasping her hands together. The movement was slow and deliberate, as if she was reaching out somewhere for something.  He had seen her cats stretch one paw at a time with the same deliberation and lack of speed.  She looked and acted like a cat sometimes, sleek and mysterious, affectionate on their own terms.

       She walked down the four concrete steps to the yard where the children were still playing.  Their laughter made her smile.  She sat down on the second step.  Mark followed her and sat beside her.

     “When the doctor told her the cancer was inoperable is when she started planning her death, I think.  She knew we would be devastated, but didn’t want our sympathy; she didn’t want us to treat her any differently.  I know that now.  The little things she did are real obvious now.”  Emily threw the ball that rolled to her feet to Dylan, her six-year-old nephew. 

      “Like what?”  Mark clapped his hand together inviting Dylan to throw the ball to him.  The ball fell about two feet short of its destination.  Mark stepped over to retrieve it and throw it back.

      “Oh, like showing me where certain things were, like papers and such, and showing me the necklace my dad gave her when they married that I’d never seen before.  Like she wanted to be sure I knew she even had this stuff.  She even showed me her birth certificate and we laughed about the tiny footprint on it.  She was pretty subtle about showing me stuff.”  The tears had subsided for the moment as she laughed at the kids chasing each other in the freshly cut grass.  “She finished writing some things she had been working on for a while, like the books for kids, with pictures and anecdotes about their moms and dads and their other relatives.  She even finished a Christmas stocking she had started embroidering when Lauren was born.  She had been working on that for seven years and she finished it just last week.  She almost couldn’t hold the needle anymore, but she was determined she wouldn’t leave anything undone when she left.”

        Emily took Mark’s hand in hers and pulled it to her lips.  She brushed her pink lips over his hand as soft and tender as a whisper.  “She asked me just day before yesterday if you had asked me to marry you yet.  I told her I had asked you and you said, ‘No’.  She cried until I explained that you said you wanted to be the one to ask when the time was right.  She wanted us to be together so much.  She really did love you and knew that I loved you too.  It was really important for her to know I would be happy, like Don and Christine and like Roy and Suzanne.”

       Lizzie, the youngest of the nieces, ran up to Emily and nearly knocked her off the porch.  “Aunt Em, come play with me.”  Her eyes danced and twinkled as she grabbed Emily’s hand out of Mark’s grasp.  “Play with me like Grandma.”  What a little doll.  Lizzie.  Mary Elizabeth Coleman.  You have some mighty big shoes to fill, Pumpkin.  Beth.  Mary Elizabeth Slaughter.  Your namesake, Mom.  God only knows if she’ll ever really know what that name meant to so many people.  God only knows if she’ll ever really know who the real woman was behind that name.  Emily picked Lizzie up and hugged her close.  “Yeah, let’s play …. like Grandma.” 

 

Growin’ Up Southern

            “And the nominees for Best Picture are: “Growin’ Up Southern”, director: Penny Marshall; screenplay by and adapted from the novel by Kathy Jo McLean …”.  The announcer’s voice echoed throughout the huge auditorium.  I reached out and grabbed the knee of my 19 year-old son with a trembling hand.  He looked so handsome in his white tux with baby blue cummerbund.  His long blonde hair was sparkling clean and hung down below his shoulders real neat, for a change.  He took my hand and squeezed it.  His youthful face lit up the dark auditorium and his smile – well, how do you describe that kind of a smile?

*****

            Kathy.  Not Kathleen or Kathryn, just Kathy.  Simple, uncomplicated.  Add Jo and it’s a little bit country.  But that’s how it was in Mississippi in the 40’s and 50’s.  Everybody had a short middle name so when your mama called you home for supper, it sounded like an order.  “Kathy Jo, come here!”  That’s what my mama used to say at about dark, when the lightnin’ bugs started blinking their tails and the crickets started singing their nightly songs. 

            I always wanted to be Kathryn Josephine, like a princess or a queen, but I was just Kathy Jo.  Luckily there wasn’t much chance of other kids teasing me with a simple name like that.  Some called me “Fat Butt” or “Chubby Jo”, but that was just ‘cause I was fat, not ‘cause of my name.

            Being born female in Mississippi in the 40’s wasn’t easy.  In fact, it was damn hard now that I’ve been away quite a few years and can look back objectively.  It didn’t seem hard at the time ‘cause girls were treated special in the South.  We were delicate little creatures, not expected to think much or do much except for doin’ for our man or our children. 

            “It’s a good thing y’all got a pretty face, ‘cause y’all sure are stupid”, my mama used to say all the time.  And she was probably right.  I was pretty stupid.  I did what I was told, ironing my daddy’s and my brothers’ shirts just right – with the military crease and the collars starched just right, and frying up the chicken so it was done thru and thru, crispy and not a bit greasy.  Making that chicken fat gravy with mashed potatoes and biscuits from scratch.   I might’ve been stupid, but I sure could cook, clean and iron.

            And I could do for my man and for my children.  The only problem was I didn’t want a man or children.  I wanted something different, but I sure wasn’t gonna get it in Mississippi, and I probably wasn’t gonna figure out what it was I wanted either; at least, not living in Mississippi.

            I guess I was kinda pretty; at least, the boys thought so as I got a little older and started to slim down and develop a little.  I know my daddy was always on my back about boys hanging round, my staying out past my bedtime and especially about coming home with my sweater turned wrong side out.  Hey, that only happened once.  I learned to feel for the tag in the dark after I got caught that once.  He was pretty stupid too, cause he believed me when I told him that was the newest fad – wearing your clothes inside out. 

            There wasn’t anything wrong with a little petting in the back seat of the car as long as you didn’t go all the way.  Good girls just didn’t do that.  And I was a good girl.  Good girls waited until they were married to go all the way, but what was gonna happen if I didn’t get married?  Did that mean I’d never go all the way?  So, who really cared at 14?  I’d heard it hurt a lot and made a mess, ‘specially the first time.  And Mama told me sometimes you just had to “grin and bear it” to please your man.  That didn’t sound like something I really wanted to do anyway.   But once I tried it, it wasn’t so bad.  In fact, I kinda like it.

            But I wanted to write.  That’s all I’d ever wanted to do.  Write stories and plays and poetry and movies and tv shows.  I just wanted to write stuff that made people laugh and made people cry.  I wanted to write about the South and what it was like growing up in the South.  I wanted to write about being a woman and what it was like being a woman growing up in the South.  But Mama said I better plan on having a man to take care of me since I was so stupid and wouldn’t ever amount to a hill of beans.

            I didn’t believe her – at least, not completely.  I thought I could do most anything I wanted; well, maybe not anything I wanted.  Some things girls just didn’t do, like go out at night by themselves or open their own car doors or travel without white gloves or wear white shoes before Memorial Day or after Labor Day.  That was just tacky and good girls didn’t do that.

            I look back now and remember how much I wanted to write and maybe win an Oscar someday for the best movie based on my best selling novel.  I’d get up on that stage and thank my agent and my publicist; I’d thank the director and the actors that played the parts; I’d even thank my mama and daddy for their inspiration.  Who knows? I might even thank my brothers; after all, they were the ones that really inspired me, asses that they were.

******

            “Hey, Fat Butt, whatcha doing’?  Don’t cha know y’all can’t get thru that door without turning sideways?”  Oh, for the love of a brother.  Charlie was the worst; he was three years older than me and a real asshole.  He picked on me and insulted me and teased me through my entire adolescent years and into my teens, but when I started dating his friends, he started seeing me a little different.  It was kinda like I was a threat to his manhood or something.  I thought it was funny, so I dated mostly the ones just like him, the real assholes, just to piss him off.  And I did. 

            He’d tell Mama that so ‘n so was just dating me for one thing and that was to get in my pants.  Of course, Mama knew better.  I was a good girl and she knew I was a good girl and she knew I’d never let a boy get in my pants.  Of course, she never told me I couldn’t take them off.  Oh, but, that’s another story.

            When I started showing up at his friends’ parties, I thought he would come unglued.  Especially when I could drink him under the table, even at 15. Talk about a way to piss a brother off.  There was a time in there when he didn’t even speak to me, which was kinda neat for a change.  Especially in the mornings when he used to scream at the bathroom door, “It don’t matter how long you stay in there, you can’t improve your looks.”  But that peace and quiet didn’t last long, when one of his best friends got me knocked up. 

            I think he was just as pissed as Daddy was, but no one was as upset as Mama.  I thought I was gonna die when I had to tell her.

            “Mama, you gotta minute?”

            “Sure, Baby, whatcha need?”  She always called me “Baby”, but this time it cut to the core.

            “I need to talk to you for a minute.”

            “So, talk.”

            “Can we go in your bedroom?”

            “Now, Sugah, I got supper to get on the table.  Just talk to me while I fry up this chicken.”

            Charlie was sitting at the kitchen table, so I really didn’t want to say anything right then.  I looked at him and he was in the middle of reading some stupid funny book so I knew he’d never move.

            “Mama, please, it’s personal.”

            She put the lid on the cast iron frying pan and wiped her hands on the apron that she washed, starched and ironed daily.  “Well, I reckon we can go on the back porch where it’s cool for a minute if y’all hurry.”

            We walked through the screen door that led to the big back porch.  It slammed behind me before I could catch it.  Daddy had been meaning to put a new spring on it for three summers that I could remember.

            Mama sat down on the porch swing and patted beside her.  “OK, Baby, what’s so private that I had to leave my cooking for?”

            I really didn’t know what to say or how to say it now that I had her attention.  Real undivided attention which rarely happened in that house.  “Mama, I think, I think…..”  I caught my breath with a sob as the tears started to fall down my cheeks.

            “Lawdy mercy, Child.  Spit it out.  Ain’t nothing can be that bad.  Nobody died, did they?”

            “No, Mama, nobody died.  I just don’t know how to say it.”  I couldn’t stop now.  It was my only chance.  There was no backing out now.  I almost couldn’t get another word out between the sobs.  “Mama, how does a girl know…..”  I couldn’t take a breath and started sounding like a motor boat sputtering and spitting.

            “Goodness gracious, Baby.  Y’all are starting to scare your mama.  What in the Lord’s name is wrong with you?”  She was beginning to swing the porch swing so fast I had a hard time staying in it.  I put my foot down to stop it or at least to slow it down while I caught my breath.

            “How does a girl know, how long does it take, how does a girl know - if she’s gonna have a baby?” The last few words were barely audible.  With the squeaking of the chain on the porch swing and the chicken sizzling in the pan through the kitchen window, she didn’t hear me.

            “What?”  She put her hand up to her ear and leaned closer to me.  “What did y’all say?”

            “Mama, I think I’m gonna have a baby.”  I shut my eyes, waiting for her to backhand me.

            She had a look on her face like somebody had hit her in the belly and knocked all the air out of her lungs, kinda pale and a little green.  A little bit of sweat beaded up on her upper lip and she shut her eyes.  I listened to see if she was still breathing, but I couldn’t hear nothing with all the noises around – the crickets and the locusts marking their territories on the pine trees and the neighbor’s radio playing real loud, and the chicken sizzling in the pan coming through the kitchen window.

            She reached up with the edge of her apron and dabbed at the beginning of tears I’d never seen fall from those dark eyes. Mama always said a lady didn’t cry – at least not in public, and to her, family was public. I’d made my mama cry.

            “Mama, I’m sorry.”  I cried in public, so I must not be a lady, at least not in my mama’s eyes.

            She put her aging, but strong hand on my knee.  The swing wasn’t swinging anymore.  Everything was real still and seemed like God had turned down the volume on all the noises, waiting to hear what she had to say.  “No, Baby, I’m the one that’s sorry.”

            “Why, Mama?  Why are you sorry?  It’s not y’alls fault.”

            “Yeah, it is.  It’s my fault for not warning y’all about sex and all.  I just didn’t think y’all were ready for that yet.  It’s my fault and y’all gotta suffer through it ‘cause of me.  Yeah, it’s my fault alright.”

            She took her hand away from my knee.  It felt real cold where her hand had been.  She dabbed at her eyes again.  “I had such dreams for y’all.  Y’all was gonna do everything I didn’t get to do.  Such dreams.  Now I’m gonna be a grandmama and y’all are gonna be a mama and my dreams are all gone, just like that.”

            “Mama, I can still do lots of things.  Having a baby ain’t gonna destroy my brain.  I can still write, can’t I?”

            “Oh, Sugah, writing ain’t nothing.  I wanted y’all to go to college and marry some rich doctor and get a fine house over in Meadowbrook subdivision so y’all could take care of me when I get old and decrepit.  I wanted big things for y’all.”

            “I don’t wanna house in Meadowbrook.  I sure don’t want no doctor husband.  I don’t have to go to no college to learn to write.  I can do that now.”

            “But I wanted y’all to get lots of learnin’ and a rich husband so y’all wouldn’t have to work hard like you mama.”

            “Mama, I don’t need no husband.  I can do anything I wanna do without no man holdin’ me back or getting’ in my way.”

            “Lawdy mercy, child, y’all can’t raise no baby without a man.”

            “Yeah, I can, Mama.  I’ll show you I can ‘cause I ain’t marrying nobody just ‘cause I’m gonna have a kid.”

            She just shook her head with her eyes closed like she always did when she didn’t believe a word I said.  Kinda like shaking out the words so she didn’t have to hear them.  “What are we gonna tell your Pappa?  What in God’s name will the church folk think?

*****

            As I followed Mama through the screen door, I heard Pappa’s pickup truck pull into the driveway and my heart jumped up into my throat.  I knew I had to tell him and tell him soon, before I started to show.  Charlie kept reading his stupid comic book without even looking up.

            I grabbed the plates out of the cupboard and the silverware out of the drawer, hoping to make him move by starting to set the table for supper. 

            “Hey, you made me lose my place,” Charlie slapped at me when I jerked the book out of his hands.  I ducked just in time to avoid getting hit in the face and stuck my tongue out at him as I threw the book in the kitchen trashcan. 

            You would’ve thought it was a first edition or something the way he jumped to save that stupid little flimsy comic book from being soaked by this morning’s coffee grounds. 

            “You stupid bitch, why’d you do that?”  ‘Bout that time, Pappa walked through the kitchen door. 

            “What did you call your sister?”  The hairs on the back of his neck were standing straight out.  His deep blue eyes were almost bugging out of his eye sockets and his cheeks were flushed, and not from the heat in the kitchen.

            “Uh, nothing, Pappa.”

            “Yeah, I heard you.  I heard what you called her and you better be apologizing to her right this second.  Ain’t no son of mine gonna use that kind of language in front of his mama and he sure as hell ain’t gonna direct it toward his baby sister.”  Pappa reached out to Charlie and with one swift movement, lifted him off the floor by the collar of his shirt so he was kinda dangling over the trashcan with his brown soaked comic book in his hand.  “I said you will apologize to your baby sister right now.”

            “OK.  OK.  Sorry, Stupid.”

            Pappa tightened his grip on Charlie’s collar.  “What did you say?”

            “I’m sorry, Sis.  I didn’t mean to call you a ‘bitch’.”

            Pappa stood Charlie up on his feet but kept hold of his shirt collar.  “What?”

            Charlie had pushed Pappa over that line.  You know, that line that every parent has, and the only way to know where that line is is to go over it.  “Sorry, Pappa, but she didn’t have any business trashing my comic book.  She started it.”

            Pappa looked at me.  I kept looking at the cracks in the tile floor knowing if I looked up at Pappa right now, I’d either laugh out loud or cry and neither would have been good right at that very moment.  “Is that true, Kathy Jo?”

            “Well, yeah, I guess so, but I was trying to set the table and he wouldn’t move.  He had to sit in my way with that stupid comic book like it was a classic.”

            “It is a classic.  It’s Dick Tracy and you know how good those books are.”

            “Oh, good grief, Charlie.  Didn’t high school teach you nothing?  Didn’t you learn anything about good books?  How in the world did you graduate anyway?”

            “Hey, what are you talking about?  Of course I graduated from high school.  You know that.  I just like Dick Tracy.  What’s wrong with that?”

            “Nothing, I guess.  You would just think that … oh, never mind.”  I knew it was best to just let it go and take whatever punishment I had coming from Pappa.  I’d never be able to get through to Charlie or to Pappa about reading good stuff, instead of trash.  “Sorry, Charlie.  I’ll buy you a new Dick Tracy first edition.”  I eased back toward the kitchen table to finish setting the table for supper hoping everyone would just let it go now.

            Mama took her hands out of the soapy dishwater and wiped them dry on her now dirty apron.  “Y’all get washed up.  Supper will be ready in about 5 minutes.  Now get a move on so it won’t get cold.”  She gently pushed Charlie toward the bathroom. 

       Pappa walked over and patted her on her butt and gave her a little peck on the cheek.  “What a way to come home.  What started all of that anyway?”

       “No telling.  Kathy Jo is a little irritable lately, so maybe that’s it.  Now, you go get cleaned up for supper too.”

      “Must be that time of the month, huh?  You always get a little cranky yourself.”

       “Yeah, that must be it.  Now go get cleaned up, I tell you.  Chicken is ready to eat.”

        Pappa walked to the back of the house to put his work clothes away and wash his greasy hands.  I looked at Mama and she looked away, avoiding my eyes.

       “Mama, how do I tell Pappa that I’m gonna have a baby?” 

       “I don’t know, Child, but don’t you go doing that right now.  I’ll know when the time is right.  You probably oughta let me tell him anyway.”

       “No, Mama.  That’s my job, not yours.”

      “Yeah, but it’ll be a little easier to digest if I tell him right before he goes to sleep when he’s … well, when he is pretty calm and happy, if you know what I mean.  You let me take care of that, Sugah.  I’ll know how to do it best.”

        “Know how to do what best, Mama?”  Charlie walked back in to the kitchen wiping his wet hands on the front of his shirt.  He walked over to the kitchen table and swung the chair around backwards so he could straddle it.

       “Oh, nothing you need to worry your little mind about, Honey.”  Mama grabbed a big plate and started dishing up the fried chicken.  It sat on the plate still sizzling while she plopped the mashed potatoes in her old china bowl that had one big chip in the rim.  I grabbed the plate of chicken and the bowl of mashed potatoes and sat them on the kitchen table just as Pappa walked back in the kitchen. 

       Mama poured off most of the grease from frying the chicken and added a little flour.  While the flour was browning in the grease, she stirred and poured in some sweet milk making a thick white gravy.  As it got just right, she poured it into the gravy boat that matched the china bowl, even down to the chip in the rim.  When I put the gravy boat on the table and the saucer of vine-ripened sliced tomatoes, Pappa and Charlie started piling everything on their plates. 

     I went to the refrigerator and got the pitcher of ice tea and filled their glasses while Mama waited by the stove.  I sat down with Pappa and Charlie, but realized that I wasn’t hungry.  I looked at Mama and saw that she was looking off into space and was pretty oblivious to Pappa and Charlie and the clanking of spoons against china bowls and forks against old unmatched plates.  Pappa poured sugar into his tea glass and began stirring.  The tinkle of the ice cubes against the teaspoon and the sides of the jelly glasses with the clanking of the spoons against the china bowls, was almost musical. 

           

_______

           

            “And the winner is……’Growin’ Up Southern’, director Penny Marshall, screen play by Kathy Jo McLean.”    Then came a noise, kinda like the rolling thunder as the bottom fell out of the sky during a gulley washer in Mississippi.  It was the applause.  Or was it?

            I felt the cameras and all eyes turned toward me and Ms. Marshall sitting in the row right in front of me.  My heart jumped into my throat and pounded so hard I thought I would collapse as my son turned toward me with the most amazing look on his face.  Did I really hear my name?  Was I dreaming?

            “Mama, you did it!  Oh, God, Mama, you won!”  His pride in my work was so overwhelming, I thought my heart would just bust.  Ms. Marshall reached over the row of seats to grab my hand.  She motioned for me to go to the stage with her.  Not me!  It couldn’t be happening to me.  I stood up, hoping my knees would hold me just a little longer, and slid out of the row between the seats and my son.  God, I hope my dress ain’t tucked up under by panty hose.  As I saw his face break into a grin that spread from ear to ear and those remarkable blue eyes dance, I felt the same sensation deep in my belly I had felt a little over nineteen years ago.

*****

           

       “Push;  push harder.  Come on, Kathy Jo.  You can push harder than that.  One more good one.  Come on;  you can do it!”  The nurse was screaming at me and the doctor was in a place nobody oughta be.  Damn, it hurt.  Is this ever gonna end?  It seemed like I’d been pushing hard for days.  This kid better be worth it.  “Come on, Kathy Jo.  You can do it.”  I felt like my guts were gonna come out down there, not a baby.  Damn, Eve.  This is all your fault.

            “It’s a boy.  A beautiful, perfect, baby boy.  Look, Kathy Jo.  You got a little baby boy.”  They paddled his little tiny butt and he let out a holler they could’ve heard ten blocks away.

            Oh, my God.  A boy.  I’ve got a baby boy.  They laid him down on my belly while they kept messing around down there.  I’m still just a pushing but they tell me to quit now, that it’s all over, but all I can see is that perfect, little person lying on my belly, all slimy and squirming.  That’s my son.  My boy.  This ain’t no baby doll – it’s the real thing.  A baby.  All mine.  Nobody gonna take this baby away from me, not ever.  My son.  David Forrest McLean.  My flesh and blood.  My baby boy.  Thank you, God.  Tears started to well up in my eyes, but I didn’t have no Kleenex to wipe them away.  I did it.  With your help, God, I did it.

*****

            “Hell, no.  I ain’t talking to no Social Service people.  That is my son and ain’t nobody gonna take him away from me.”  I layed in the hospital bed with Mama and Pappa standing right long side me.

            “Now, Baby, y’all are just a baby yourself.  Sixteen ain’t old enough to raise no kid.  How do y’all suppose y’all are gonna feed him and buy him clothes and such?”  Pappa just didn’t get it.  After all these months of my trying to convince him that I could take care of my baby, he still just didn’t get it.  It was my baby and I wasn’t gonna give him up to nobody – no matter what I had to do.

            “Pappa, I told you over and over again.  I’ll do whatever it is I have to do, but no stranger is gonna raise my boy.”  I slung my legs over the side of the bed and stood up, shaky at first, but then I got my balance.  I walked over to the little crib they had set up in my room.  It was all plastic looking with a little blue blanket wrapped around David all nice and tight so he couldn’t hurt himself.  At one end was a little sign that somebody had written on.  “Baby Boy of Kathy Jo McLean”.  “See, Pappa.  It says right here that this is my baby boy.  Not yours.  Not nobody’s but mine.”

            I reached down and picked him up like I had done it a hundred times before.  He felt so warm and snuggly, like a new kitten, and he smelled like baby powder.  He made a little purring sound as he settled into my breast.  “Now, get outta here.  I gotta feed my baby boy.  Don’t you come back here with no Social Service people either, ‘cause they ain’t taking my baby.”

            Mama wiped her eyes before Pappa could see she was crying.  Damn, all I did lately was make Mama cry, but right now, I just didn’t care.  My baby boy was hungry and I was gonna feed him like God meant for me to feed him.

            I hummed “You are My Sunshine” while David sucked down my milk.  I touched his little rosy cheek and he sucked a little harder and a little faster.  “Nope, ain’t nobody gonna take you away from your Mama.  Not now, not ever.  We’re a team now.  Just you and me.”  His big ol’ eyes opened up and looked straight into mine, like he was saying, ‘I believe in you, Mama’.  “It’s okay, Sunshine.  We are going places – just you and me.”

*****

            Ms. Marshall held my hand tight as we climbed the stairs to the stage.  I still couldn’t believe what was happening.  Could this be real?  I know somebody’s gonna wake me up in a minute and I’ll feel like a damn fool.  Or that man up there will say there’s been a mistake or something.  

            “And I’d like to thank Kathy Jo McLean, for her wonderful book and script.  With true Southern charm and true Southern grace, she has written a powerful novel that has touched all of us.”  Ms. Marshall was gonna let me say something.  Oh, God.  I sure wasn’t prepared for this.

            “I’m not sure what I should say here, ‘cept are y’all sure ‘bout this?  Anyway, there are lots of people to thank for getting me here, but mostly, my son, David.”  I looked from the stage directly into those big blue eyes that looked back at me like they did nineteen years ago and there were saying the same thing to me now.  “He believed in me then and he believes in me still.  You are my sunshine. Honey.  Thank you.”